House by the River (1950)

House by the River is rather unusual among Fritz Lang’s American films. It’s a period thriller, set presumably sometime in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. And this is unquestionably a gothic thriller.

This was a low-budget movie, made by the Republic studio. Republic was a Poverty Row studio although they did make the occasional A-picture. They were certainly not as low down the food chain as PRC where Lang’s fellow-countryman Edgar G. Ulmer spent most of his career. House by the River doesn’t suffer too badly from its low budget. Lang had adapted surprisingly well to his lengthy sojourn in Hollywood. None of his American pictures have the lavish budgets of his early German movies but Lang by this time needn’t need big budgets. His style had become much more economical with a much greater focus on character. What he did need was a decent cast, and in this instance he has that.

Louis Hayward is Stephen Byrne, an unsuccessful writer. As we gradually discover, he’s not really much of a success at anything. His brother John (Lee Bowman) is continually rescuing him from one scrape or another. And he’s certainly not much of a husband. When he first meet him he’s trying to seduce his wife’s maid. He is as unsuccessful at this endeavour as he is in everything else, but this time with much graver consequences. He ends up strangling the maid.



As he explains to his brother, it was an accident. It could have happened to anybody. It’s clear that nothing is ever Stephen’s fault. Life is always conspiring against him, causing publishers to reject his manuscripts, and now causing him to commit murder. Against his better judgment, John once again agrees to try to keep Stephen out of trouble.

This proves to be a very poor decision. The evidence at the inquest seems to point more towards John than Stephen, and Stephen does nothing to lessen these ill-founded suspicions against his brother. While John finds himself more and more enmeshed in a nightmare Stephen prospers. One day of course the reckoning will come for Stephen, but will it come too late for John?



Louis Hayward does a very fine job. He gets the self-pity just right. Stephen is a boy who has never grown up, never accepted responsibility. His grip on reality is less than perfect. Much less. The whole world revolves around him. He assumes that because he wants to be a writer he must be one. It’s just those fools of publishers who can’t appreciate his talent. Now he has found a theme that will guarantee the recognition that he believes he deserves. Typically enough his choice of theme is thoroughly self-centred and selfish. He will use the murder he himself committed as material for the novel that will cement his reputation. And in fact the notoriety that surrounds the murder does establish his fame as a writer. Stephen is a nasty piece of work but he is so wrapped up in himself that he’s entirely unaware of it.

Lee Bowman does a capable job as John, while Jane Wyatt is very good as Stephen’s wife Marjorie. But it is Hayward’s performance that is crucial to the movie’s success and he  delivers the goods.



Edward Cronjager was a more than competent cinematographer. He rarely worked in either the film noir or gothic areas but when he did do so he proved himself quite capable, his most impressive work being the very underrated 1947 Technicolor noir Desert Fury. Lang and Cronjager evoke the necessary gothic atmosphere exceptionally well considering the modest budget they had to work with. The scenes on the river are suitably moody and ominous.

Film noir and the gothic overlap quite a bit, both genres tending to focus on doom and the remorselessness of fate, and Stephen Byrne’s story has that sense of inevitability about it that one associates with both genres. The nightmare that John Byrne finds himself living has that same sense of inevitability. John will always try to rescue Stephen, and he was always going to come to grief one day as a result.



The Kino DVD is all too typical of this company’s output. Picture quality is mostly quite acceptable but there is some print damage. It’s certainly nowhere near up to the standard that a Fritz Lang movie deserves. Lang has been both lucky and unlucky where DVDs are concerned. It’s been a positive asset to his reputation that just about all his American movies have been released on DVD and are therefore accessible, but very few have been given top quality releases.

House by the River is an unusual but unjustly neglected part of Fritz Lang’s filmography. Lang and the gothic prove to be a good match and this movie is highly recommended.

Peter Ibbetson (1935)

Peter Ibbetson is a quirky romance with a supernatural theme, or at least with a theme that can be interpreted that way. This 1935 Paramount production was helmed by Henry Hathaway as a starring vehicle for Gary Cooper.

Two English children are growing up next door to each other in Paris. They have more than their fair share of childish quarrels but they’re clearly devoted to each other. Then the young boy’s mother dies and the boy is sent to his uncle in England. Twenty years later Peter Ibbeston (Gary Cooper) is a promising up-and-coming architect. On a holiday in Paris he finds the house he grew up in and the memories come flooding back. What he doesn’t yet know is that he is destined to meet his childish sweetheart again, in very unexpected circumstances.

Peter is engaged by the Duke of Towers to supervise the rebuilding of the Duke’s stables. The Duchess, Mary (Ann Harding), is his long-lost childhood playmate, but he doesn’t know that yet. Peter and the Duchess quarrel over the plans for the stables, a quarrel which is very much like their long-ago childish quarrels. They are both people who like to get their own way.



Peter and the Duchess make a curious discovery. They share the same dreams. Literally. They appear in each other’s dreams and the dreams are more life-like than reality. Slowly the truth dawns on them that they are indeed the two children who had been growing up together in Paris all those years ago. And another, more disturbing, truth dawns on them. They are in love, and always have been.

Unfortunately the Duke, who is much older than his Duchess, soon figures out what’s going on. There is an argument; the Duke is killed. Peter Ibbetson ends up in prison. after a beating he is lying in his cell dying, when Mary comes to him in a dream. She tells him they can be together always. And for many years afterward they are, in their dreams.



The big problem with this movie is that the story is just too ethereal, too fanciful and too whimsical to be convincing. It stretches our credulity too far. Despite this the romance has a definite charm and Gary Cooper and Ann Harding make a perfect romantic couple. The movie has no right to work, but somehow it does work.

Cooper was always very likeable as a romantic lead and in this role he also has the stubbornness that his character requires (a quality Cooper always did convincingly). Ann Harding plays Mary as a kind of other-worldly figure, which is perfectly appropriate. Look out for a young Ida Lupino in a supporting role.



The fact that this movie employed the services of no less than eight writers tends to indicate that the screenplay (based on a novel by George du Maurier) gave some trouble. The problems with the script were never really resolved.

Director Henry Hathaway and cinematographer Charles Lang give the movie a slightly fairy-tale look that suits the material.

Whether there is anything supernatural going on or whether it is just a case of people who are close to each other having an exceptionally vivid dream life is open to question. The movie seems to come down on the side of something fantastic actually occurring.



Peter Ibbetson is included in the Gary Cooper Collection DVD set from Universal. Picture quality is slightly grainy but otherwise very good.

This is a rather dreamy and sentimental romance that works better than you might expect. It’s an interesting oddity in Gary Cooper’s filmography. Worth a look provide you have a fairly high tolerance for sentimentality.

Algiers (1938)

Algiers is customarily described as being an inferior Hollywood remake of Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko. Duvivier's 1937 movie is widely regarded as being one of the finest examples of the French poetic realism style of the 30s (a style the French sometimes referred to as film noir). In fact Algiers does not deserve to be dismissed so lightly.

It is certainly a very faithful remake indeed, but given the aversion that American audiences have always harboured towards movies in languages other than English it made very good sense to do a remake. The story was too good to allow American audiences to miss out on it. And given that John Cromwell was a perfectly competent director, that he had the services of a very great cinematographer (James Wong Howe) and a very strong cast it would have been surprising if he had been unable to make a good movie from such material.

Pépé le Moko (Charles Boyer) is a renowned jewel thief. He is wanted by most of the police forces of Europe, and most especially by the police authorities in Paris. Pépé now resides in Algiers. When a senior police officer arrives from Paris he is astounded that the local police have not yet managed to arrest Pépé. He is even more aghast when he discovers that Inspector Slimane (Joseph Calleia) knows exactly where Pépé is and in fact sees him regularly on a social basis. With great patience Inspector Slimane and the head of the Algiers police try to explain to the Paris policeman that arresting Pépé le Moko is much more difficult than it seems.



Pépé is hiding out in the Casbah, the native quarter of the city. The Casbah is a bewildering labyrinth of narrow alleyways, and even worse it is very easy to pass from the roof of one building to another. In such a maze it is exceptionally difficult to find someone who does not want to be found. More importantly, while it would be possible to arrest Pépé it would not be possible to get him out of the Casbah. The inhabitants of the Casbah might on occasion tolerate the presence of the police but they certainly would not tolerate them if they were unwise enough to arrest somebody there.

In spite of all this Inspector Slimane is confident that he will eventually arrest Pépé, but he must be allowed to do so in his own time and in his own way. The Casbah is a safe refuge for a criminal like Pépé, but it is also in its own way a prison. If Pépé were to leave the Casbah even for a moment he would instantly be apprehended.



Pépé is very much aware of his situation, and he is not happy about it. He misses Paris. He misses Paris even more when he meets Gaby (Hedy Lamarr). Gaby is spending a vacation in Algiers with her very rich but somewhat elderly fiancé. Gaby is both beautiful and fascinating. She is the sort of woman who is, in the opinion of Pépé le Moko, worthy of a man like Pépé le Moko. And Gaby is equally fascinated by the notorious thief.

The problem for Pépé is that he cannot leave the Casbah, and Gaby is not the sort of woman who would be prepared to live in such a place. This presents Pépé with a very annoying problem, and it presents Inspector Slimane with an opportunity.



As much as I admire Jean Gabin and as much as I like his performance in Duvivier's original film, it has to be said that Charles Boyer makes an excellent Pépé le Moko. And there is the required chemistry - and plenty of it - between Boyer and Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr is excellent - aloof and amused and slightly mysterious, and vaguely exotic. She’s one major reason for seeing this film.

Joseph Calleia as Inspector Slimane goes close to stealing the picture. I know we’re supposed to see Pépé as the hero but there’s no escaping the fact that he’s a criminal and he treats his girlfriend Ines (Sigrid Gurie) abominably. I couldn’t help empathising more with the clever and determined Slimane. Alan Hale is amusing as Pépé’s friend Grandpere, a crooked Casbah jewel dealer.



James Wong Howe’s cinematography is, as always, gorgeous. He and director John Cromwell do a fine job of conveying not just the sense of mystery and intrigue of the Casbah but also the fact that it is Pépé’s prison. It always feels claustrophobic. It might be a haven from the police, but it’s not freedom.

Alpha Video’s DVD is not good but it’s better than you usually get from this company.

If Duvivier's Pépé le Moko can be film noir then there’s no reason why Cromwell’s 1938 movie should not also considered as film noir. Either way Algiers is fine entertainment. Recommended.

Johnny Eager (1941)

Johnny Eager is a 1941 MGM gangster movie that can, at a stretch, be seen as a proto-noir.

Robert Taylor was a major star at the time but he was thought of as being something of a lightweight, a pretty boy who was fine as a romantic lead but without much substance. Taylor would later develop into a very fine actor in rather dark roles in film noirs such as Rogue Cop and The Bribe. Johnny Eager can be seen as one of his first attempts to demonstrate that his acting really did have some depth.

Johnny Eager had been a notorious gangster before he was sent to prison. Now he’s out on parole and doing his best to go straight. He has a job as a cab driver and he is now a model citizen. His parole officer Mr Verne (Henry O’Neill) considers Johnny to be one of his greatest successes, a living proof that even hardened criminals can be successfully rehabilitated.

Unfortunately for the well-meaning Mr Verne, it’s all a lie. Johnny Eager is still running his criminal empire while putting on a remarkably convincing act. He maintains a cheap apartment in a poor neighbourhood as a front, but he only inhabits it when he gets a tip-off that his parole officer will be paying him a visit.



Johnny is the big boss of the city’s gambling rackets. His current project is to open up a dog-racing track. Apart from being a big money-spinner this will also be a convenient front and a useful place for laundering money. He has the politicians paid off but there is one major obstacle in his way, John Benson Farrell (Edward Arnold), the city’s incorruptible DA, and incidentally the man who sent Johnny to prison.

Everything is running fairly smoothly for Johnny until his parole officer arrives with two young female sociology students in tow. Lisbeth Bard (Lana Turner) is immediately attracted to Johnny and their paths are destined to cross again. Johnny is tiring of his current excessively needy girlfriend and Lisbeth soon takes her place. There are two problems associated with this romance. The first is that Lisbeth is the daughter of John Benson Farrell. The second is that Lisbeth falls in love with Johnny.



Johnny thinks the first problem can be easily dealt with. He sets Lisbeth up in such a way as to give him something big to hold over Farrell’s head, something that he can use to remove Farrell as an obstacle to his criminal activities. The second problem is more difficult. Johnny doesn’t take his relationships with women very seriously. His girlfriends come and go and he assumes that they understand that, and that they won’t become clingy. Unfortunately Lisbeth doesn’t work that way. Lisbeth doesn’t care that Johnny is a gangster, but she does care when he tries to give her the brush-off. This sets events in motion that will threaten the destruction of Johnny’s criminal empire and Johnny himself.



Robert Taylor is superb, as he always was when he was given a demanding role that allowed him to explore the darker side of human nature. Johnny Eager is both charmingly naïve (his knowledge of any subjects not related to crime is almost zero) and ruthless. He really knows very little about what makes people tick and his understanding of women is non-existent. He might be an anti-hero and a gangster but he’s difficult to dislike. Johnny Eager certainly has charisma.

Van Heflin, not yet a major star, is excellent as Johnny’s perpetually drunken sidekick Jeff Hartnett. Hartnett is a writer and an intellectual and seems on the surface of it to be an unlikely person to be mixed up with gangsters (although intellectuals do tend to be fascinated by criminals). Johnny claims that he doesn’t know why he lets Hartnett stay around him, but in fact Hartnett is his only true friend, the only person who doesn’t want something from Johnny. Hartnett always tells Johnny the truth. Those with the tedious habit of looking for gay subtexts may be tempted to look for one here. I personally find it rather irritating when any friendship between men is interpreted this way. I think the friendship between Johnny and Jeff Hartnett is more interesting without the gay subtext.



Lana Turner is surprisingly just a little on the bland side as Lisbeth. Or possibly she’s simply overshadowed by the very fine performances by Taylor and Heflin.

This movie was helmed by Mervyn LeRoy, always a reliable director of this sort of material.  Harold Rosson was in charge of the cinematography. They give the movie a definite atmosphere, and the noir feel is enhanced by Robert Taylor’s interestingly complex performance.

Johnny Eager is available as a made-on-demand DVD in the Warner Archive series. It’s an excellent transfer.

Johnny Eager is either an intriguing proto-noir or perhaps just a very early example of outright film noir. Either way it’s a very good movie and is highly recommended.

The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Ten Commandments, released by Paramount in 1956, was Cecil B. DeMille’s last film. At $13.2 million it was one of the most expensive movies made to that point in time, and it was one of the biggest box-office successes in history, pulling in $64 million on its first release. Adjusting for inflation and taking into account re-releases it remains one of the most successful movies ever made.

DeMille’s share of the profits was huge but he gave half of it away to be distributed amongst the crew, an unprecedented gesture.

DeMille took an enormous risk with this movie. Paramount were very nervous about the whole project. Had DeMille not been involved they certainly would not have proceeded with it. DeMille had to be very careful not to offend either Christians or Jews, and considering the fact that the movie fictionalises a good deal of the life of Moses it was no easy task to come up with a screenplay that would not upset somebody. DeMille insisted that the screenwriters could not just make it up as they went along when it came to filling in the gaps of Moses’ life. Everything had to be at least vaguely plausible and the script drew on the work of various Biblical scholars as well as the works of ancient historians like Josephus.

The location shooting in Egypt undoubtedly shortened DeMille’s life. He suffered a massive heart attack. The doctors told him that if he rested in bed for four weeks with oxygen he would make a full recovery. He told them, “Forget it gentlemen. I’m going to the set in the morning.” And he did. He intended to finish the picture even if it cost him his life.



The story of course is essentially an expansion upon the Biblical story of Moses, of the infant Moses being found by Pharaoh’s daughter in a basket on the Nile, of his early life as an Egyptian prince and of his deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from bondage. Needless to say, this being a DeMille movie, it also includes a love story, plenty of sex and plenty of action. There might not be any actual battle scenes but DeMille has no trouble in turning this story into an exciting adventure yarn filled with spectacle.

There was no way of doing spectacular scenes like the parting of the Red Sea using existing special effects technology. The production team and the crew had to invent their own special effects. They did this so well that Steven Spielberg has described the parting of the Red Sea as the greatest special effect in movie history.



Even by DeMille standards this is a big movie. Officially some scenes utilised the services of no less than eight thousand extras although people who were there believe the true number may have been closer to twelve thousand. And in scenes on that scale DeMille would fuss over the placement of a single extra. Much to the horror of star Charlton Heston. But Heston admitted that DeMille was right in taking such pains. No-one ever had the same feeling for crowd scenes that DeMille had. DeMille did not believe in the concept of extras. As far as he was concerned everybody who appeared on screen was an actor. They should know what the director was trying to achieve, they should know what the scene was about and they should know what part they were to pay in the scene.

DeMille was fiercely loyal to the people he had worked with in the silent era. H. B. Warner, who had played Jesus in DeMille’s 1927 King of Kings, was brought out of a nursing home to play one last role.



After considering half a dozen other actors DeMille finally decided on Yul Brynner in the role of the Pharaoh Rameses. The danger of putting Brynner in such a role was that he was likely to overshadow the real star, the actor playing Moses. Fortunately with Charlton Heston as Moses there was absolutely no danger of that happening. Both Rameses and Moses are played as truly epic larger-than-life characters, which is as it should be.

Yvonne de Carlo brings a surprising (and entirely appropriate) dignity to the role of Moses’ wife Sephora. Anne Baxter gives one of her better performances as Nefretiri, the woman for whose affections Rameses and Moses are bitter rivals. Vincent Price has great fun with the role of the master builder Baka while John Carradine chews up the scenery as Aaron. For Edward G. Robinson the role of the Hebrew slave master Dathan was a career-saving role. Despite their political differences Robinson had immense respect for DeMille. I’ve always thought Cedric Hardwicke was rather overrated but he does well as the old Pharaoh Sethi.



The movie had to be ready for a November 1956 release and unfortunately the consequent haste is evident in a few scenes. Some of the blue screen shots certainly could have used more work. What is extraordinary though is just how well the important scenes hold up. Every scene that really matters works superbly.

This movie is an odd mix of outrageous entertainment and piety. DeMille saw no conflict between the two. This is a rare example of a deeply religious movie that is also enormously enjoyable as entertainment.

The Region 4 DVD release spreads the movie over two discs, which presents no problems since the movie has an intermission. The transfer is an excellent one.

It is unlikely that anyone but Cecil B. DeMille could have made a movie such as The Ten Commandments work. This film is an extraordinary achievement. It’s one of those movies you just have to see.

The Hoodlum (1951)

The Hoodlum is a nicely seedy little 1951 crime B- movie that is film noir in style if not in content. It was made for Jack Schwarz Productions, on a very low budget even by B-movie standards.

Vincent Lubeck (Lawrence Tierney) is no good. He’s been in and doubt of reform school and prison since he was sixteen. Now he’s served five years for armed robbery and is eligible for parole. The  warden knows Vincent is no good and recommends that he not be granted parole but he is overruled by the bleeding hearts on the Parole Board, influenced by a sob story from his mother. They believe that the purpose of prison is to reform prisoners. The warden knows this is dangerous nonsense but is overruled and Vincent is paroled. The members of the Parole Board won’t have to pay the price for their lousy judgment - the Lubeck family and the rest of society will pay that price, as they always do.

Vincent’s brother Johnny (played by Lawrence Tierney’s real-life brother Edward)  gives Vincent a job at his gas station. Vincent is not grateful and is already planning his next robbery - the bank across the street from Johnny’s gas station.



Vincent’s mother, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend Rosa (Allene Roberts)  all try to reason with Vincent. Vincent is too busy wallowing in self-pity to listen. Vincent does take a brief break from feeling sorry for himself to seduce Rosa, thus ruining yet another life.

Vincent has big plans. He intends to rob the armoured car that picks up the money from the bank. He has it all worked out. The plan is foolproof, even to the extent of using a funeral to expedite the robbers’ getaway. Like most foolproof schemes dreamed up by two-bit hoodlums like Vincent the robbery goes badly wrong, and Vincent is soon on the run with nowhere left to hide.



Vincent is a man with no redeeming qualities. It’s a credit to Lawrence Tierney that he can keep us interested in the fate of such an unpleasant character. It’s a powerful and rivetting performance. Vincent is no film noir hero driven to desperation by the wiles of a femme fatale or caught in the net of fate. He has made his own choices. Both he and his brother Johnny were brought up in poverty but Johnny has worked hard and now has a successful business. It might be only a gas station but Johnny is still rightfully proud that he is earning a good living and an honest one. There was never anything to stop Vincent from doing the same, but Vincent was always too busy feeling sorry for himself and being angry at the world which he obviously believes owes him a living. As his mother admits, Vincent has always been at war with the whole world.

Edward Tierney has the thankless role of the good hard-working brother and he handles it fairly well. Allene Roberts is effective as Rosa, a woman destroyed by her passion for a bad man. In this case it is Vincent who plays the role usually reserved for the femme fatale, using his bad boy glamour to ensnare Rosa.



European director Max Nosseck does an efficient job. His career never took off, even after he scored a surprise hit for Monogram with Dillinger in 1945, also with Lawrence Tierney as the star. Dillinger became one of the most successful releases in Monogram’s history.

With a running time of just 61 minutes this movie is unlikely to wear out its welcome. The movie’s visual style puts it into the noir camp even though there’s little in the content to justify calling this a film noir. It’s a gritty little crime B-movie and it succeeds quite well on its own terms.



The mood of the film is unrelentingly bleak. It is bookended by a memorable sequence in the city dump that establishes the movie’s lack of hope, and this darkness certainly gives it some claim to be considered a noir. Vincent began his life in a house so close to the dump that the smell was always there, and at the end of the he’s back there again. That smell really is destined to follow him throughout his life, and to provide him with a never-ending alibi for failure.

Image Entertainment’s region-free DVD release offers an unrestored but acceptable print. There are no extras but at the very low price being asked you wouldn’t expect any.

The Hoodlum is a tough uncompromising movie that is as spiteful as its lead character. An excellent example of the B-movies of its era. Recommended.

Murder Is My Beat (1955)

Murder Is My Beat is a 1955 Edgar G. Ulmer film noir but sadly it cannot be described as one of the highlights of his career.

The movie was released by Allied Artists, formerly Monogram Pictures. Allied Artists aimed to make marginally more prestigious pictures than the average Monogram picture, but Murder Is My Beat is all too obviously a very low budget production.

We start with Police Captain Bert Rawley (Robert Shayne) tracking down Ray Patrick (Paul Langton) to a seedy motel in a small town in northern California. Patrick is a Homicide detective who’d worked under Rawley but he’s gone off the rails and assisted a blonde female prisoner to escape. Patrick then tells his story in an extended flashback.

It started with a routine case. Middle-aged businessman Frank Dean had been murdered. His lady friend Eden Lane (Barbara Payton) is the obvious suspect. The only unusual aspect of the case is that Dean had been thrust into a fireplace and his hands and face had been so badly burnt  as to make identification a problem. This is a definite weakness in the plot - everybody acts on the assumption that of course the body belongs to Frank Dean since it was found in his apartment but would any real-life police officer, or any real-life court, accept such a dubious identification?



Nonetheless the police do assume the body is Dean’s, and Ray Patrick is given the task of making a fairly perfunctory investigation. He talks to Eden’s roommate Patsy Flint (Tracey Roberts) and is soon on Eden’s trail, tracking her down to a mountain cabin. He arrests her and she is convicted.

Shortly afterwards Detective Patrick is assigned to accompany the prison matron escorting Eden to another prison. When the train makes a brief stop in a small northern California town Eden spots a man on the platform. The man is Frank Dean! She is so convinced of this that she manages to persuade Ray Patrick that she really has seen the man she supposedly murdered. Patrick realises that the woman he arrested and caused to be convicted could be innocent. Of course the sensible thing to do would have been to escort her to the prison and then go back and investigate. But if film noir protagonists made sensible choices we’d have no film noir, so Patrick helps Eden to escape.



He tells her he’ll give it one week. If by the end of that week he hasn’t turned up any evidence that would clear her he’ll take her to the prison.

Of course Patrick’s motives are not as straightforward as a mere desire to prevent an innocent women from being imprisoned - he has fallen for her and he has to believe she’s innocent because he loves her.

After six days he has found a few interesting leads but he is a long way from proving a case. And then Eden disappears. And then Captain Rawley shows up. In true noir style the world is starting to come crashing down on Ray Patrick. He’s thrown away his career, he is likely to face criminal charges and the woman he did all this for has vanished. He does get one lucky break - he persuades Captain Rawley to give him another 24 hours and Rawley agrees and offers to help Patrick in his attempt to break the case.



The story is fine. It is a bit contrived but it has an authentically noir feel to it, with betrayal, murder and blackmail. The characters are fine. Ray Patrick is a standard noir hero who is dragged down into a nightmare world by an attractive blonde. Eden is not a femme fatale but in plot terms she serves the purpose well enough - she tempts Ray Patrick in giving up everything he has for her.

The problems here are that the acting is not good enough to sell the story, and Ulmer seems to have lacked the motivation to give the film the sorts of stylistic flourishes and the sense of weirdness that characterise his best low-budget work. This is a rather conventionally made low-budget crime flick. Without those stylistic flourishes to balance them the cheapness of the sets and the excessive reliance on rear projection become only too apparent.



Paul Langton is adequate but lacks any charisma, while Barbara Payton was already far advanced in her systematic campaign of self-destruction and lacks the verve (and much of the sex appeal) that she displayed in her earlier movies.

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD looks about as good as such a low-budget can be expected to look.

Murder Is My Beat is unfortunately merely a routine ultra-cheap B movie and while Ulmer completists will want to at least rent it it’s difficult to recommend this movie.